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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Brewfest!

Fill 'er Up!

Delgada is perpetually thirsty. I'm sure it is just a trick of the mind, as the undead require little food and drink past the remains of their kills to live a long undeath. Still, Delgada enjoys Brewfest, for this is the time when that trick is doused quite regularly and cheaply with brews from around Kalimdor. The trolls make a flirtatious medium weight ale that is perfectly suited to their tropical home. Just heavy enough to satisfy, but light enough that, when chilled and garnished with one of the citrusy fruits grown on the isles, will bring down your temperature considerably. The orcs make a pretty heavy, spicy brew, which is totally unsuited to their established home in Azeroth, but comes in pretty handy where the recipe was born. Autumn in Nagrand can get pretty crisp, and this brew goes down quite well with a hefty plate of roast talbuk and some tubers. The Blood Elves have tried to join in, but they haven't learned the fine art of the brew, instead coming laden with casks of light, fruity wines and bubbling champagnes. Delgada will stop by there a time or two during the festivities, just to make them feel welcome.

The Ogres come with their brew, which is pretty much only enjoyed by the very drunk and the ogres themselves. It's commonly thought that they use their loincloths to filter out the frothy sludge resulting from the heating of the various grains and other additions to their concoction. I'm pretty sure they even bathe their young in the early part of the brewing process. The resulting brew smells much like a bilge pump operator 10 minutes before his shower crossed with the aroma left by a terrified skunk. The flavor is much like what I think tea made from jock straps and sweat socks would taste like. Even when hammered, Delgada stays far away from their booth. Even if she cannot taste much due to deteriorating taste buds, or smell much for want of a working olfactory system, she is still conscious of how she must smell to others, and there is no sense in adding to that.

All the flavors of these brews would be tainted quite sadly by the dry, dusty, hot weather that Orgrimmar is famous for, if it weren't for some goblin ingenuity. With the help of the goblin engineers, the prominent breweries have refridgerated kegs and their booths are stocked with insulated steins, with small freezers below the bar to stow them when not in use. The elves were even given a small cooler for their wines to chill in, though I wonder where they stashed it, for by some magic their wines are already chilled, and the chest is nowhere to be seen!

As for food, The dwarves will tell you that sausage and pretzels were a gift from the Titans to the dwarves before they were soundly ejected from the underworld to live out their puny mortal lives on the surface. This is only partly true. If it weren't for the help of some troll voo doo, they would not have known how to package the spiced meats into a sausage form. Only a troll would know how to use every part of a living thing to it's fullest. The dwarves will forever be trying all sorts of different recipes in order to try and attain sausage perfection, but the true secret is in the parts. And the trolls, dey ain't tellin'. The dwarves can have their cheese, pretzels, and mustard. Their sausage will never be anything but a cheap imitation, poor fools.

I'd like to thank Windpaw for the inspiration for this post. Someone had to tell the Horde side of things!

Brewfest has to be my second favorite holiday, after Hallow's End. Horde side isn't quite as fun as alliance for Brewfest, probably because there really isn't much lore behind the brew. The alliance drink because it is in their blood, the horde drink because the goblins thought it might be a good money making scheme? Eh.